


New Year’s Resolution:  Read More Poetry

by ChillyHollow



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Poetry, john donne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillyHollow/pseuds/ChillyHollow
Summary: Fool’s Gold follow-up per popular request.  You need to read that chapter first to get the full effect of this one.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16
Collections: Cormoran Strike Boxing Day Ficlet Fest





	New Year’s Resolution:  Read More Poetry

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [StrikeBoxingDayFest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StrikeBoxingDayFest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> New Year’s resolutions

Three weeks later Robin was taking down the Christmas decorations and putting them away in the boxes she’d brought from home for that purpose when there was a knock on the office door.It opened and there he was, Strike’s father.Robin never got used to seeing him in person. He always seemed like a pale imitation of the Jonny Rokeby that she’d seen on television and in the newspapers or magazines for most of her life.She supposed he came alive when he was performing.Right now he just looked like a well-to-do older man in an expensive suit who might be a bit tired.“Cormoran’s not here.He’s out on surveillance but he’ll likely be back after lunch.Want to come back later?Or I can get you a cup of tea and you can supervise as I pack this lot away?” 

“I’d love a cuppa.I like that you got a real tree.The wife always has an artificial one.She says they don’t grow them big enough for our living room but it doesn’t smell like Christmas like this one does.”“Isn’t a fire hazard either I bet.We should have gotten a fake one as this old building is likely a tinderbox.”Robin got the kettle going and pulled out two mismatched china mugs, the heavy sort that her partner favored.“How do you like your tea?”“Strong but with milk please.Can I help you with the decorations?I can reach the ones at the top better than you.” 

“Thanks.I wrap each ornament in tissue paper and put them in this box, then the tinsel goes in this one after I get the lights off and coiled into a tidy ring so they are not hard to put on next year.”“You are very organized!”“It’s just my nature, I guess.”“Must makeyou a good investigator.Look, I really just came to thank you both for looking into that matter for me and to pay you what I owe.” 

“I know Cormoran would have done it for nothing, you being family and all.”

“Well, I owe you both for your help and discretion. Plus I wasn’t such a good father when Cormoran was growing up.I want to make up for that the only way I can.The new building is centrally located, close to the Tube and it’s in an up-an-coming area.Eventually it can be sold at a tidy profit and already there are good rents coming in.If there’s one thing I know, it’s property.”

Robin looked surprised, “And here I thought you were just a musician.”Rokeby threw back his head and laughed, and when he did, Robin saw the resemblance to her boss.“Oh, that was the start of it all.I made most of my pile investing the money the music brought in.I love music but it comes too easy.I like a challenge and learning to pick the right properties for investment is just plain fun.I seem to have the knack for it.” 

“Well, it’s going to come in handy with this building being sold out from under us.Why didn’t you buy on this block? Or did you?I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.I just thought with the music history associated with this area….”Robin trailed off, embarrassed.“I thought about it,” Rokeby told her as he sipped his tea between handing her ornaments off the tree to wrap in the sheets of paper laid ready on her desk.“But the conversions are not going to preserve the history.The music businesses are already moving out, headed into Stratford.And since I own two buildings there….”He trailed off.Robin looked thoughtful.“Well, I guess you are right.Better to build new memories than try and hold on to the old.”They both drink tea, thinking their own thoughts, until Robin decided to change the subject.“Are you going somewhere after New Year’s?Cormoran said Al was going to Switzerland after Christmas.” 

“Yes, we are all going skiing.I don’t care for it that much but most of the kids enjoy it a lot and I can sit in the lodge, and read by the fire while they are out trying to break a leg.”“Don’t you ski at all?”“I like cross country but on downhill skis I’m mostly just really good at falling over sideways.”Robin laughed.“My fiancé and I are thinking about taking a long weekend and heading to Bath for Valentine’s Day.”

“Sounds romantic.How long have you been engaged?”

“Almost two years.The wedding is planned for this summer back home in Yorkshire.” 

“Speaking of fiancés, did Cormoran get those photos of the cheating fiancé to his client?I was quite proud of my performance at taking them.I might like being a detective!”Robin was flummoxed.“I didn’t know we had another cheating client this month. We normally get quite a few after Christmas but since we are officially closed for two more days, they haven’t started pouring in yet.”“You have to see these!I did a great job.”And Rokeby pulled out his phone and showed her the photos of her fiancé with Sarah Shadlock, proudly relating how he’d managed them.Robin wasn’t sure how she was able to respond appropriately while stunned, and even ask him to email them to her, but she did it.Fortunately for her self-control, she heard her partner on the stairs just then and Rokeby turned aside to greet his eldest son, while Robin mechanically resumed un-decoratingthe Christmas tree.The two men went into Cormoran’s office to discuss the transfer of the property he was gifting the business as payment for services received, and Robin was left to her own chaotic thoughts and a pile of crumpled tissue paper.

 ************************** ****

A day later Cormoran walked into the office, carrying two coffees, feeling optimistic about the upcoming year for the first time in a while.The awkward connection with his father was starting to smooth into an interesting acquaintance, the business was doing well, and he had the best partner in the world.The fact that he had totally inappropriate feelings for her and some rather compromising photographs on his phone were small flies in the ointment, things he’d think about later.Of course it had been on his mind every time he wasn’t busy for the last three weeks.How on earth could he be the one to disillusion Robin about the man she planned to marry in six months?How could he not tell her?It was a dilemma that had kept him awake for weeks, and a puzzle he was no nearer to solving.If Robin had been a male friend, it would have been easier.But she was his business partner and someone he had very strong feelings for.If he was honest with himself, he’d use the word love.But she loved another so….

Robin was at her desk, photos spread out that she was studying.She looked up and he was shocked at her expression, both angry and sad, and the red-rimmed eyes.“When were you going to tell me?”“What?” was all he managed to stammer before he got close enough to see the photos were the ones his father had taken for him.“Where did you get those?”

“Your father was kind enough to email them to me yesterday.He let slip that he had played detective for you and wanted to brag about how well he’d done it.”

“Robin, I’m sorry.I should have told you but I didn’t know how.”

“How about just telling me that Matt was cheating on me?How did you find out?”

“By accident.Dad and I met at this restaurant to talk about the thefts and there they were.I asked him to take the photographs on impulse and then I didn’t know what to do with them.”

“Would you have let me marry that louse?!” she shouted angrily.

“It’s off, then?”

“Of course it is.I went home after you guys left yesterday and had it out with Matthew.I can’t marry a man I don’t trust.I threw his ring at him…” —Cormoran noticed for the first time her bare fingers and somewhere inside him something was cheering— “…packed my bags, and moved in with Vanessa for now.I’m going to have to start hunting for a cheap flat after the New Year but I want to know why you didn’t tell me.Just how long have you known?” 

“Three weeks,” he said miserably.“Put yourself in my shoes.What would you have done if it’d been me and Charlotte and you found out she was cheating on me?”

“Told you immediately of course!” she shouted at him.“Would you?” he asked quietly, then he turned, went into his office, and shut the door, leaving her with photos of Matt and that smug cow spread out over her desk, torturing her for her blindness while he tortured himself for her not being torn about revelations the way he was. She didn't care, that much was clear.

**************************

That evening Robin and her photographs were at Vanessa’s where Robin had just poured herself a second glass of wine.The subject of their discussion veered from Matthew’s perfidy to Cormoran’s for not alerting her to Matt’s infidelity immediately.Frankly, Robin after two glasses was madder at Strike.“Why couldn’t he have said?”Vanessa looked amused.“He fancies you, silly.Men think that’s not playing the game, to rat out another guy in the hopes of taking his place.”Robin scoffed.“He does not!”“Does, too,”claimed Vanessa.The door buzzer went off.“Whoops, that’s my date.”She grabbed her purse, took a quick look at her hair and face in the mirror, and was gone in a swirl of perfume and party dress.It was New Year’s Eve and Vanessa had big plans for her new man. 

Robin polished off her second glass of wine and poured a third.Fancies her?How silly!He was just being a man, thinking they know best, not trusting her with the truth about Matt (whom she was well shut of) when she trusted Strike and would expect him to look out for her the way she would look out for him.It was a great excuse to blame Sarah for breaking up with Matt, though. She had been feeling trapped by Matthew for a while now.Her family wouldn’t have understood her having cold feet about the life Matthew planned for her without even consulting her, but they understood why she didn’t want to marry a man that cheated on her.Why didn’t Strike understand her?Or Matthew who had tried to buy her off with promises of eternal fidelity she knew he wouldn’t keep and new diamond earrings.MEN!

Robin wasn’t going to sit here and take it any more.She’d dealt with Matthew; now it was time to set Strike straight.She grabbed her coat, purse and phone, and set out, oblivious to the fact that it was getting dark and a holiday.It didn’t take long to get to Denmark Street since the crowds were elsewhere.But she was stymied by Strike’s not being home.She pounded on his door, then listened.Nothing.The silence was complete.Was he off partying somewhere?Robin racked her brain to remember what he had mentioned he was doing this weekend.Of course!He was moving into the new apartment in the same building as the new office.Robin hazily remembered he had been collecting boxes and had bribed Shanker to help him move.That probably happened yesterday evening or maybe today?She was a little unclear but over two glasses in, what did the exact timeline matter?Maybe she’d stop for another glass of wine on the way to the new place. 

An hour and another glass later, Robin was at the new address.It was a rather nice brick building, four story, with retail space on the bottom two floors and apartments on the top two.She’d not seen it in person herself before but she’d seen photographs.The lobby was currently unmanned although she had been told there was a doorman during the day.She marched to the empty duty station and looked hazily at the phone.Which apartment was Cormoran’s?She thought it was the top floor.She turned and looked at the elevator, then decided why give him warning?He might try and duck her, knowing the scolding he was about to get.She pushed the button for 4 and leaned against the elevator wall, suddenly a little dizzy.Van wasn’t right, Strike didn’t fancy her.She certainly fancied him, though.Was that why she was so angry?Robin pushed the thought aside and marched out of the elevator as soon as the door opened.The door to number 4 was to her right and a door marked Services was to the left.Easy enough to guess which was the apartment and which housed the air conditioning and heating equipment.As soon as she got to the door she started pounding on it. “I know you are in there.Let me in!”

The door swung open and there was Strike in shirt sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows, a book in his hand.Robin barely noticed John Donne’s name on the cover as she pushed her way past him.The apartment was open plan, sparsely furnished with a leather couch and two arm chairs and a large ottoman arranged around a free standing gas fireplace.There were unpacked boxes stacked next to the wall of empty bookcases.Strike apparently had been sitting in front of the roaring fire as a bottle of whiskey and a glass were sitting on a tray on the ottoman.“Robin!What are you doing here?”Robin was still furious.She stalked to the ottoman, picked up the whiskey glass and drank it all, then threw the glass at the wall where it shattered.“Damn you.Why don’t you trust me?”

“What?”Strike took in her glittering eyes and slight swaying and deduced that the whiskey wasn’t her first drink of the evening.“You should have told me about Matthew and Sarah!”“I wanted to,” he started to say.“No, you were just a coward.You didn’t want a scene.Men never want a scene.” “No,” Strike said quietly, looking at his book, then at Robin, “‘I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so.’Or not saying so, in my case.”

Robin tried to follow him but the whiskey on top of wine was playing havoc with her mind.“Are you saying you didn’t tell me because we are friends?”That didn’t make sense.

“No, Robin, I’m saying I am in love with you and telling you what I accidentally found out so you wouldn’t marry Matthew was self-serving.I couldn’t bring myself to do it and couldn’t bring myself not to speak up and let you marry him, so I was still debating the best thing to do and the best way to do it when my father let it all out.”Strike sighed and laid his book on the kitchen island before he turned to face her.Robin stood frozen to the spot, her drunken brain trying to comprehend what she thought she had heard.It sounded as if Cormoran had said he loved her.Just how much had he drunk?Her eyes drifted to the whiskey bottle. 

As always he seemed to read her mind. “One glass, Robin.That apparently was enough to finally tell you how I feel.And of course I hope you won’t start throwing things again.”

“I was so angry,” Robin admitted.“I thought you didn’t trust me or didn’t care enough to let me know what Matt was up to.”

“Ellicott,” Cormoran was standing in front of her, close enough she could smell the whiskey on his breath and see that his eyes were dilated in the dim light.“Ellicott, look at me.I was afraid of losing you if you married Matthew and afraid of losing you if I told you about him. It wouldn’t be right for me to be the one to break it to you when I love you so much.I was caught either way. I might as well tell you that you are always on my mind and in my heart in a totally inappropriate way. We are business partners and that’s important to me but I’d like us to be partners in other ways.“'Come live with me, and be my love, and we will some new pleasure prove of golden sands….'”Robin cut him off by flinging her arms around his neck and pulling him toward her so she could kiss him.“Marry me,” he muttered, kissing her back in a most thorough way.

‘Maybe later,” Robin replied.“I want a test drive or two in the bedroom before I commit.”Van says that is important, to know if you are compatible physically.” 

“Very smart lady, that Vanessa.I’m willing if you are,” he said as he pulled her toward what she thought was likely his bedroom. "'License my roving hands, and let them go,Before, behind, between, above, below.'”

Robin thought she might really like John Donne’s poetry.

**Author's Note:**

> Ciara Porter just happened to be at the restaurant in Fool's Gold. It's the sort of place she would frequent and of course she would greet everyone she knew on the way to her table. Sorry to disappoint but she was essentially window dressing in Part One.


End file.
